Picking "Loquitur" up the other day, my Quaker friend's photo & a draft
of this fell out. Fine-tuned some vowels, removed some excess. I
assume I wrote it in '95.
Doorways.
i.m. 1990-1985
'unde laoquaces lymphae desiliunt tuae'
i.*
Stands in the door's archway,
peers, grinning
into a lens of sunlight,
leans firmly on his cane:
look of a man,
life's work almost done,
battling regret
for what was not got down; a man yet
apprenticed to waiting.
ii.
Plain tombstone another doorway:
where hoped-for last sonata's syllables
flickered out in grass.
The ten-year weathered stone
in my friend's photo,
bears only name and dates;
his attendance at Meeting,
a lifetime's silent
integrity intact.
*Derek Smith's photo in Conjunctions 8.
Pete.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|